His Christmas Fantasy

She and Darren often spent a flight brainstorming. It was the perfect use of time. She occasionally talked to other people on board when she traveled alone. But it had never felt like this—dangerously intimate, as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. As if she was rather rapidly losing her mind…

If Sam leaned just a little closer to her, and she a little closer to him…his mouth, with that sensually full lower lip, was right there. Never once when she and Darren were seated next to one another had such errant thoughts run through her head.

She looked away from him and blindly reached out to straighten the magazine and paper stuffed in the seat back in front of her. And no, it wasn’t to occupy her hands with something other than cupping his jaw. Well, maybe it was. “I’d rather talk about it on the drive up from Phoenix,” she said.

Discussing a project with him that centered on falling in love seemed a much safer proposition with the rental car’s front seat between them. She really looked at the seatback ahead of her and realized she’d just rearranged the barf bag. Kind of fitting, actually.

He shrugged and the movement echoed through her as his shoulder rubbed against her. “Sure. However you want to play it.”

She picked up her magazine and proceeded to ignore him. Or rather, she tried. Sam wasn’t an easy man to ignore. He wasn’t loud or boisterous or ultrahigh-energy. If anything, he tended to be on the quiet side, a man comfortable in his own skin who didn’t need to be the constant center of attention. But he radiated a strength and determination, a grit that gave him presence.

She was conscious of him on every level—his scent, his arm resting near hers, the hug of worn denim across his thighs, his broad, well-shaped hands, the smattering of dark hair beneath the pressed cuff of his white shirt—the same as Christmas night two years ago.

That had the dubious distinction of being both the best night of her life and the worst, both exhilarating and mortifying. She recalled it with such clarity that it could have been last night rather than two years ago.

They’d feasted on Christmas dinner and retired to the parlor so Dad could watch The History Channel. Sam, Helene and Giselle had headed over to the love seat to finish off a leftover bottle of zinfandel. Giselle was glad, really she was, when Helene had settled herself on Sam’s lap. They were newlyweds and Giselle was thrilled to see her sister so happy. They’d only polished off half a glass of wine when their mother had called Helene over to look at kitchen remodeling magazines. Mom’s kitchen was definitely long overdue. Giselle did not, however, possess Helene’s knack for interior design, which left her sharing the love seat with her new brother-in-law.

The Christmas tree lights were winking and blinking, a dying fire glowed in the fireplace, and Giselle, who’d been on guard all day against any more errant moments such as the one on the stairs when she’d been showing Sam to Helene’s room, foolishly relaxed. She and Sam talked writing and photography and argued whether the Cubs or Braves had a better pennant chance in the upcoming year.

Sam had laughed at something she said and in that instant everything shifted, tangled, clarified. The most intense surge of sexual longing had ripped through her, shaken her to her core. She’d wanted to use her hands and mouth to map the angles of his face, the rugged line of his jaw, the broad expanse of his chest, his slightly splayed thighs and all the areas in between.

It didn’t matter that her family sat a stone’s throw away in the same room. She’d ached for the press of his body, the slide of his hands beneath her clothes, on her bare flesh. She’d wanted to taste him, feel him, every intimate inch. Like a flash flood roaring through a dry canyon, desire had deluged her. The intensity was a hundred times what it had been earlier on the stairs.

He was her sister’s husband. She’d excused herself posthaste and all but run to her room. She’d felt ridiculous, guilty and horrified that Sam or any of her family might’ve had any inkling of the direction of her thoughts. And while she’d hid in her room, she couldn’t escape the unquenched fire that followed her.

She’d made sure she was out the door and on a long walk bright and early the next morning when Helene and Sam were leaving. She’d vowed to keep away from him. She’d be pleasant but distant. And still her feelings plagued her for days, weeks, months. Sam became her forbidden fantasy.

She’d never felt so damn guilty in her life because not only was Sam her sister’s husband, but she’d known, for that moment in time, that Sam wanted her in return. She’d felt the impact of his gaze lingering on her lips and knew he wanted her, and she was so ashamed that she’d known not only the sweet, hot ache of physical desire but a flare of triumph that he wanted her, Giselle. Wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels. It wasn’t Helene’s fault that men had always been attracted to her, rather than Giselle, the sister with the good personality. Nor was it Helene’s fault that the boy Giselle had such a horrible crush on in high school had asked to walk Giselle home…just to wangle an introduction to her sister.

And there’d been something so noble in the fact that Sam had looked away first. If she had to feel this betraying lust, this forbidden desire for her sister’s husband, at least he was worthy of the guilt Giselle felt for coveting him. And of course, she’d never actually betray Helene by doing anything, and neither would Sam. That had been apparent. And somewhere in there the illicit attraction she felt for him was compounded by a sense of sacrifice. She might want him, and he might have wanted her, but they’d both looked away because it was the right thing to do.

And then she’d found out he’d betrayed Helene and it had been doubly painful. Not only was he not the noble man she’d thought him, but his affair with some nameless woman meant he’d looked at someone else the way he’d looked at Giselle, with that same yearning, and it had rendered that night meaningless, robbed it of its magic.

She should’ve thanked him for that. For turning her something-beyond-infatuation into loathing. But then that loathing became self-loathing because even though he wasn’t worthy, even though he was a cheat, she couldn’t seem to scour him from her mind.

And now, mind aside, he was seated next to her on her pilgrimage to get over him once and for all. And the truly wretched part was that if he stood up right now and announced he wasn’t going and walked off the plane, she was fairly certain she’d be more mournful than celebratory. Oh, what a tangled web…

She felt him look at her, but she steadfastly pretended to read her magazine, turning a page for good measure. She felt too raw, too vulnerable to risk glancing at him.

To Sam’s right, the blonde all but leaned into his lap, or maybe she was just carried by the momentum of her oversized boobs.

“Hi, I’m Felicity,” she said, introducing herself to Sam. “Are you two together?” Felicity’s voice grated, painfully perky after Giselle’s near-sleepless night.

Giselle kept her eyes trained on the magazine page in front of her, but she felt Sam’s quick glance in her direction. “We’re coworkers. This is a business trip.”

“What kind of business are you in?”

Giselle retrieved her iPod from where she’d stored it in the seat back ahead of her.

“I’m a photographer and Giselle’s a journalist. We’re working on a magazine article.”

“Ohh,” Felicity squealed. “A photographer. How fascinating.”

Giselle shoved in her earphones and turned the unit on. She’d flown often enough to zone out the flight attendants upcoming safety spiel. She’d rather be nibbled to death by vampire ducks than listen to Felicity flirt with Sam the entire trip. Thanks, however, to her foresight in charging her iPod, vampire ducks were totally unnecessary.

The opening chords of Ravel’s “Bolero” swelled in her ears, muting Sam’s low rumble and Felicity’s enthusiastic response. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the music’s passion and sensuality.

She still sensed his body heat, the proximity of his leg, arm and shoulder. There was no escaping the subtle combination of soap and maleness that was Sam, but at least without seeing him and hearing him she hoped to maintain a little distance…and sanity.

Sam McKendrick was a sickness…and she desperately needed a cure.

SAM EMBRACED the silence filling the car as they left the remnants of suburban Phoenix behind and headed north on Route 17 to Sedona.

Giselle drove the rental SUV. It was her story, her project, and she wasn’t a woman who would put him behind the wheel of the car simply because he was a man. That was fine with him. He studied her profile as she navigated a lane change.

His ex-wife and her mother boasted classically beautiful features of high, sculpted cheekbones, flawless complexions, straight noses, thick curling lashes surrounding slightly exotic eyes, and lush full mouths. Giselle, however, had inherited the Randolph features. Her small, slightly snub nose bore a liberal sprinkling of freckles; her cheeks were more round than angular; wispy lashes framed her hazel eyes; and although wellshaped, her mouth lacked the pouting fullness of her mother’s and sister’s. However, Giselle exuded an innate sensuality.

It was as if Helene was so used to her looks commanding attention that she’d never bothered to develop any other attributes, whereas Giselle immersed herself in the world around her and it filtered back through her, lending her a depth and earthy sexiness his ex-wife didn’t possess.

“What?” She slanted him a brief look and then trained her eyes once again on the road. “Don’t stare at me.”

“I wasn’t staring, I was looking.” He couldn’t seem to get enough of looking at her.

“Well, don’t. Don’t look at me.” Her rigid shoulders and faint frown screamed Off Limits.

“Why not?” He ignored her off-limits order. “I like looking at you.”

She in turn pretended she hadn’t heard his declaration. If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he would’ve missed her almost imperceptible gasp. “It makes me nervous and you should never make the driver nervous.”

“Is it me in particular or people in general looking at you that rattles you? Most women like being looked at,” he said. Helene had seemed to crave it, in fact.

“I’m not most women,” she said on a husky note, “so you can stop.”

No. She definitely wasn’t most women. She was smart, sexy and slightly bohemian. She defied categorizing, which was why he hadn’t been able to forget her. What would she say if he told her he wanted to do so much more than simply look at her? He wanted to kiss her until she forgot that he’d once been married to her sister and that her entire family despised him. He wanted to hear her gasp with pleasure.

“I’m a slave to your happiness. Your wish is my command.” His rejoinder hung between them, bound them, thickening the air with a raw sexual awareness. An image clicked into his head like a film frame. Giselle naked in his bed, her sweet nipple in his mouth, his cock buried deep inside her, his hand between them, stroking her clit as he dedicated himself to bringing her to orgasm.

Color stained her face, as if she knew what he was thinking. “Then you should’ve stayed home, Sam.”

Rather than any real venom, he thought he detected a desperate note in her rebuttal. Or maybe he was just projecting his own sense of desperation in taking the assignment so he could see her again.

“It’s a little late for me to stay home. Plus I’d miss seeing this part of the country.”

“Then try looking out the window,” she said dryly.

He laughed because that was definitely the Giselle he knew and he was just damn glad to be here, sharing a ride with her. “Fine. You drive and I’ll watch the scenery.”

He unzipped the equipment bag he’d stored on the floorboard and pulled out his camera. Even when he wasn’t looking at her, she seemed to surround him.